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Canberra artist Chris Wilson's record breaking caricature marathon

John Thistleton

Chris Wilson breaks the Guinness World record for caricature drawing. Photo: Graham Tidy

Mentally, Chris Wilson was spent hours before unofficially breaking the Guiness World record for caricature drawing on Thursday morning.

He could barely get up from an exercise mat on the Canberra Hospital's veterans lounge floor.

"Come on, you've got to get going," his partner Vivienne Andrews said, shaking him awake in the early hours, aware of how sleep deprivation hurts. Since Tuesday morning she too had the barest of sleep.

Somehow he walked into the main foyer of Canberra Hospital to resume drawing caricatures for 50 hours.

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His first 16 hours slipped by without so much as a toilet break, as he banked five-minute breaks for later.

"But by the second day they had whittled away, because I had to have breaks. I went outside for a walk, had to get some sunshine, I had to push through," he said.

Awoken early Thursday after only one hour's sleep, barely able to re-focus.

"Obviously I'm running on adrenalin at the moment," he said at the end of his record-breaking feat.

"But I can tell you last night, I went for an hour's sleep and got up and sat in front of the first client and thought, what am I doing here?

"I really struggled. I was drawing him and thinking am I supposed to be doing a caricature of him, or talking to him. I was going to ask my volunteers, 'Why am I here again?' "

Since conceiving an idea to break the previous record of 48 hours and raise money for the Canberra Hospital Foundation Mr Wilson, Ms Andrews and their supporters planned meticulously.

The 51-year-old marathon runner's chosen venue, the hospital, was inspired, for in the graveyard shifts of Wednesday and Thursday, when most sane people slept, Ms Andrews rang the wards for nurses, security guards and other good-willed people to keep sitting for the determined artist.

On their last legs about 11pm on Wednesday with a torturous night still ahead of them, the Wilson team's spirits lifted when 15 women from Brindabella Chorus showed up, singing the 1960's "Lazy Day", followed by "How Many Hearts Have You Broken".

Those final 10 hours were grinding.

Under intense knitted brows Mr Wilson's eyes blinked as quickly as the fractions of seconds flashed towards 50 hours about 10am on Thursday.

Full of emotion, he threw his hands up in triumph when the finish came and went. A stayer on the running track, his test this time was greater mentally. Ms Andrews said at one point his brain stopped talking to his hands.

"He lost the ability to talk about lunchtime on Wednesday, he couldn't talk and draw at same time. I had to nag him, 'Stop talking and just keep drawing'."